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Beautifully Wrapped and Lavishly Loved . . . You are a Gift!

2 Nov

youaregift

The last blog post was about Remembering our Miracles.  Not losing sight of the Gifts that are doing life right in front of us.  Not allowing the stuff “between the numbers” to steal our vision.  I’m certain that as you read, your own precious heart album was laying wide open in your mind’s eye.  And I’m just as certain that as you looked into those eyes, saw their smiles, and considered the depth of your love toward them, you were overwhelmed with thankfulness to the One who gave them to you.  The One who intentionally carved out a place for each and every one of those beautiful faces in your heart.

Have you ever stopped to consider how purposeful God was when He gave you those Gifts?  Those Miracles imprinted on your heart and your mind?  He designed them, precious in His sight, fearfully and wonderfully made and then . . . . . He entrusted them to you.   It wasn’t an accident.  It wasn’t happenstance.  It was choice.  They were given to you–Gifts to watch over and to care for–beautifully wrapped and lavishly loved, heart-picked and hand delivered by Divine choice.

God knew that there would be life stuff come their way that would be more bearable, more joyful, and more doable with you by their side.  See, the blessing of Miracles and Gifts runs both ways.  Your Miracles, well . . . they possess the Gift of YOU.

  • God determined that you were the one to walk beside your husband and to support him even when it’s hard.  Nobody else could fill those shoes.  He made them just for you.
  • He knew that the baby He put in your arms needed to have unconditional love straight from your heart.  No other heart would do.  He chose you.
  • He resolved that specifically you would be entrusted to bless and love those heart children.  Only you were appointed to shower them with unending love and blessings.
  • And those Sisters at your side were given especially to you to comfort and to encourage.  Their lives are richer, fuller, sweeter– because they belong to you.

Now you look at that list and the general terms that I offered –husband, babies, children, sisters—and they all take on names.  Names of the ones you love and maybe, if you’re like me, you think of the immensity of what He has entrusted to you and quickly become convinced that God has short changed those Sweet Ones around you.  You’re not the one to love with no strings attached.  You aren’t the reliable one, the one who will be steadfast no matter the circumstance.  You can’t meet the needs of others that way or offer comfort that really makes a difference.  You surely aren’t the one who showers love on others, may be it trickles – on a good day.  Maybe everything within you right now is shouting—I am no Gift.

Well Girlfriend, if you and I were left to our own devices, abandoned to our own hearts, I would be the first one to stand up and agree with you.  But that’s just not the case for those who believe.  God never intended for us to walk into the precious lives He has surrounded us with on our own.  We were sent there as a Gift by the One to whom we have been entrusted.  He fully desires for us to rely on the Power, the Tenacity, the Endurance, and the Love of the One to whom we have been gifted.

JESUS PRAYS FOR BELIEVERS

And so for their sake and on their behalf I sanctify, dedicate, consecrate Myself that they also may be sanctified, dedicated, consecrated, made holy in the Truth.

Neither for these alone do I pray, it is not for their sake only that I make this request, but also for all those who will ever come to believe in, trust in, cling to, rely on Me through their word and teaching,

That they all may be one, just as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be one in Us, so that the world may believe and be convinced that You have sent Me.

I have given to them the glory and honor which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are one:

I in them and You in Me, in order that they may become one and perfectly united, that the world may know and definitely recognize that You sent Me and that You have loved them even as You have loved Me.

Father, I desire that they also whom You have entrusted to Me, as Your gift to Me, may be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory, which You have given Me Your love gift to Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

O just and righteous Father, although the world has not known You and has failed to recognize You and has never acknowledged You, I have known You continually; and these men understand and know that You have sent Me.

I have made Your Name known to them and revealed Your character and Your very Self, and I will continue to make You known, that the love which You have bestowed upon Me may be in them–felt in their hearts–and that I, Myself, may be in them.  John 17:19-26

Do you see it?  You are the Gift from THE GIFT.  The richness, the sweetness, the love that you pour into the lives of others is because Christ Jesus—GOD’S GIFT TO THE WORLD–has received you – has received me – as a gift straight from the heart of the Father.  You have been entrusted to, given to, gifted to the Christ of God and He has poured Himself into you so that you might pour Him into the lives of others.

It is the unconditional Love of the One who is Love that flows through us and fills the hearts of our babies.  It’s His reliability, His steadfastness that wells up within us giving us the tenacity to walk strong beside our husbands.  It is Him, the Great Comforter, who reaches out to that Sister with our arms and lets us wear His heart for them.   And it’s Him – the Living Water, which never runs dry – showering our heart children with blessing and unending love.

See, apart from Jesus, apart from the Spirit of Love coursing through us, there is no good thing in us, but with Jesus comes every good thing.  He giftwraps us with tenderheartedness, with mercy, and with patience giving us the power to endure whatever comes and hand delivers us to the those we love and those we are yet to love.

And the world sees it.  They watch us do life.  Enduring trials, encountering suffering, celebrating and grieving with those we have been given.  We are never pulled out of the hard stuff but we’re always gifted with the One who will see us through and because we are imitators of He who loves us we walk strong and steady with those to whom we have been given.

Oh yes, Sweet One, you are the Gift and might it be that to see yourself as less-than is to see the Savior, THE GIFT who lives within you, as less-than as well?  We do not boast in or about ourselves, but we will boast all day long in our Jesus and the work He has done to transform our messy, sin filled hearts into blessings for those around us.  All praise, honor and glory to our Savior –THE GIFT—who for the joy set before Him endured the cross.

Sister, I believe with all my heart that part of the joy the Savior received were the Gifts given to Him by the Father after His work had been completed and He sat down at the right of the Throne.   I picture in my mind the Father handing His Son one Gift after another and the nail-scarred hands joyfully receiving each one.

And don’t you know Beloved, one of those

beautifully wrapped (Colossians 3:12),

lavishly loved (1 John 3:1),

heart-picked (Ephesians 2:4-6),

and hand-delivered (2 Corinthians 1:10)

Gifts –part of the joy set before Him–

is YOU.

gifts

Now thanks be to God for His Gift,

precious beyond telling,

His indescribable, inexpressible, free Gift!

2 Corinthians 9:15

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Resolved to Involve

15 Mar

Today’s blog post will not be for the faint of heart nor the person with limited reading time.  The more I thought the more that poured out on the page so if you are not in the mood for some real transparency along with blood and guts honesty you might want to wait until the next entry.  You see I am kicking around the idea that I am believing the lie that if I appear to be anything other than self-sufficiently serene then I am less than the Christian woman I “should” be.  And when I kick around an idea for me, I usually take the liberty of kicking it around for you too. I’m quite certain that I am going to have a difficult time articulating what I have been pondering so I am praying that God will take my muddled thinking and turn it into something that really speaks to your heart because I think, for all of our differences—jobs, spouses, children, hobbies—this may be something that we have in common.

There is a question that I’ve heard myself ask quite a few times over the last few weeks when I have been encouraging others who seemed to be hesitating to share and offering all kinds of disclaimers when their struggles finally fell out of their mouths.  The question I asked was this:

“When we make our trials seem small,

do we inadvertently make the One

who sustains us through them seem small?”

The sweet sisters I was chatting with were afraid to share what they were going through because they didn’t want their honesty to be misperceived as whining, complaining, or not trusting in the goodness of God. I’ll be the first one to say it’s always necessary to examine our hearts, but I’ll also be the one at the head of line shouting that God gave you those sisters at your side to do life with—Don’t steal their blessing!

Apparently, God allowed me to pose this question and explain it with such gusto to my friends so I could really feel the impact of the words when He brought them home to roost.  Funny how He does that; lets me think I’m conducting the class and then shows me that I’m the student in the corner with the cone shaped hat sitting on top of her head.

I know that I should be in party mode right now.  Life really is good.  Britt has returned to Florida and is absolutely gushing about the trustworthiness and sweetness of her God.  Brett has been released from the hospital and, though the whole thing is new to us, we are both working hard to make the new tube and accompanying equipment feel at home here on Lakeside Drive.  So, you would think that the celebration would be in full swing?  Well if you did .  . . you would be wrong.  Brett is processing all he has been through as men do (by that I mean in a way that no one without a Y chromosome can possibly understand) and I am processing things the way I do (and by that I mean in a way that is perfectly rational and to be expected).  I’m being humorous but suffice to say, the “process of processing”, has been anything but. This is where the blood and guts are going to start spilling so if you are thrown by human frailty now is when you will want to go check your e-mail or update your facebook status.

Ok,  if you’ve decided to keep reading here it is:  I know that I should be celebrating and walking on air right now, but instead I am cranky, fatigued, and emotionally overwhelmed.  Someone commented to me about Brett’s time in the hospital being a “mini-vacation” for me.  Another person thought it may have given me a chance to get some rest.  No, I was not on vacation nor did I get any rest.  I am still exhausted.  My nerves are frazzled and my body physically aches from sleeping on that hard couch-type deal at the end of Brett’s bed.   On top of those things, I am embarrassed because I am not responding to the situation with graciousness and a quiet spirit. In fact, I think it would be safe to say graciousness and a quiet spirit are not even residing in the same county I am.

I can hear my body language speaking volumes and my mouth isn’t being too quiet either.  I’d like to be kind, to be sweet, and to be upbeat but instead I am standing at the intersection of self-absorbed and cantankerous with my hands stuffed in my pockets refusing to move.  And, as if all of these things needed an exclamation point added to them, anytime I am by myself this great conglomeration of feelings decides to leak out my eyes and slide down my face.

But still, nearly every person that has made contact has received the same type of response . . . . “We’re getting settled in” . . .  “Brett has been through a lot” . . . “Our own bed was nice” . . .  all of those responses are true, but they aren’t exactly honest.  They don’t invite anybody in and they certainly don’t let anyone know the battle raging in my heart.  If you had been one of those people, how would you have prayed for me after we talked/texted/messaged?  Would you have prayed for me at all or just thought things were swell?

In comparison to others I know, the challenges on Biddinger Boulevard are small.  I have not lost my child. I have not stared cancer in the face.  I have not wrestled with the decisions surrounding the care of an aging parent.  I have not . . . . . you fill in the blank with your personal heartache.  I have not walked through the fiery trials God has called you to endure.  And still I wonder, even though the specifics of our challenges are different, might our responses be the same?   What in the world has convinced us that we must cloak the depth of our need in order to be strong Christian women?

I’m certain that the answer to that question is as widely varied as we are.  Your answer will be different than mine and both of our answers will be different than the sister reading at her computer down the street.  But this is what I’m sure of, no matter what has convinced us of this, IT IS A LIE!  God has not only given us Himself, but He has given us others to wear the hands, the feet, and the heart of Christ in our midst.  He has resolved to involve!  He has sent you friends to fight the battle, see the fatigue, and to lift you up as you walk through it all.  It’s Who He is today and it’s who He was yesterday.

Moses said to Joshua, “Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands. “So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.  Exodus 17:9-13

God didn’t expect Moses to pretend the battle was small or hide his need.  And He didn’t expect Moses to just grit his teeth and gut it out.  God knew the magnitude of the battle and how hard it would be so He sent Moses’ friends to the top of the hill with him.  When he got tired, they were there, exactly where God had called them to be doing the good work He had prepared in advance for them to do.  They didn’t think Moses was less of a man of God because he got tired and his arms grew weak.  They brought him a place to rest and took up their posts—one on one side and one on the other—and they entered the battle together.

Girlfriend, don’t turn away the ones God has resolved to involve in your life.  Let them know the fight is too much, that it has been going on too long, and the view from the top of the hill is overwhelming.  Don’t be afraid to tell them that your arms are tired and you just need to sit down for a while.  Beloved, our trial is not small nor is the One who sustains us through them. He has planned since before time began to send our us our “Aaron” and our “Hur” to give us a place to rest, to take up their posts– one on one side and one on the other—and march into battle with us. Let’s not choose to go alone.

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The Resolve to Reign

20 Feb

In the last post I said I had had two sad coffee dates.  I told you about the cup I shared with the positive thinking gal who quoted Beatrix Potter and we brewed together about the very small “idk god” most of us have bowed to at one time or another.  But I didn’t say much about the meeting with Samuel.  Truth is our dining room table was crowded that morning because Samuel didn’t come alone.  He brought the elders of the Hebrew nation with him and soon Saul had filled a cup and taken a seat as well (1 Samuel 7-9).  We can’t relive all the action or significant events leading up to this point in Israel’s history because that would push the length way past the comments column, but to me this specific moment is one of the saddest in all the Bible.

Even if you are not an Old Testament enthusiast, you know about the miracles God performed in the lives of His children.  You know that He showed Himself mightier than any god Egypt could conjure, filled the hands of the Israelites with treasure, and parted the Red Sea for their escape.  He fed them in the wilderness, never allowed their clothes to wear out or their feet to swell in their wanderings, and He set the most beautiful of all the land aside for them. Over and over again God showed them who He was and confirmed His character by what He did.   Every battle He won for them, every promise He fulfilled for them seemed to echo the Divine invitation to KNOW Him.   And with each wonder He performed and each miracle He accomplished the breath of God announced . . . “I AM Love.  I AM Mercy.  I  AM Faithful.  Know Me.  Know Me.”

That’s why we’ve got to hear His heart of love when He tells the Israelites, “Don’t chase after those other gods, don’t offer yourself to them, don’t give them your love.  You don’t even know them.”  Now  that’s a Marilyn summarization/ paraphrase of a whole bunch of verses throughout the Old Testament , but the message of LOVE is still His.

We always have to be mindful of these truths:

  • He does not need us to remain true to Him for Him.
  • He does not need us to choose to follow Him for Him.
  • He does not need us to serve Him for Him.

He does not need us to . . . . . to anything.  Here’s the truth Girlfriend.  It’s you who needs Him, not the other way around.

 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.  ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’  Acts 17:24-28

That’s the truth today and that was the truth for the Israelites.  So with all that Divine Love stirring your heart, imagine how it must have pierced the heart of God to have His people flat out reject Him as their King.  The same Nation that had declared that “The Lord will reign forever and ever” was now announcing that they no longer wanted Him to occupy the throne.

So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.” But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.   1 Samuel 8:4-7

 Feel the grief that must have washed over His heart.  These were the ones He had chosen.  The ones He had saved.  The ones He had shown His glory.  They were the ones He loved.  He had chosen to be their King so they would stand out, stand above, and stand apart from all the other nations.  He had distinguished them with His Presence and guided them with His Glory.  And now they were willingly discarding their holy distinction for disgrace.  They were demanding to return to the very state of servitude God had delivered them from.  How could anyone taste the love and freedom of the Divine and choose to abandon it?

Since I have confessed to you that my love language is thick-headed, it should come as no surprise that I love what seems to be the denseness of the Israelite people.  I am so grateful that they made the same mistakes over and over so that God could keep repeating Himself because, if nothing else, it gave Him good practice for displaying the unlimited patience He would need when He welcomed me into the Kingdom.  It’s so easy to look at the Israelites with disdain and say, “How could they?” until we really take the time to look intently at their actions. If you’re at all like me, what you see is yourself staring back.

God has done miraculous things for me and worked wonders beyond measure in my life.  I’m certain the same is true for you.  I’m also certain that just as surely as He set the Israelites free from the ruler who had placed the yoke of slavery upon them that He has set you and I free as well. He delivered us from the dominion of darkness and took our yoke of sin. And in all of this, He has whispered to our hearts  in the same real and tangible ways that He did to the Israelites, “Know Me. Know Me.”  And praise His Name, His grace led us to declare that He and He alone would be our King.  He would sit on the throne of our lives and His Presence would distinguish us from those with other rulers.  And then, just like the Israelites, we decided to trade our King for a small “k” king like everyone else had.

Remember the sadness we felt as we pondered the grief of God.  Would He not experience the same heartbreak in this instance?  We are the ones He has chosen.  We are the ones He has saved.  We are those that He has shown His glory.  We are the ones that He loves.  And in spite of Everything He Is, all too often we mimic our Old Testament forerunners by choosing to discard our holy distinction and blend with the world.

This is the part that really hits me.  We seem to believe now, the Israelites seemed to believe then, that we have some control over who is actually sitting on the Throne.  Doesn’t that strike you odd?  God has always been on His Throne, He always will be, and He is today.  Rather we choose to acknowledge His position or not, does not change the fact.  It seems like everything we study brings us back to the same point.  God cannot be changed by us, but we can certainly be changed by Him.  Let me say that again.  God cannot be changed by us, but we can certainly be changed by Him.  When we accept Christ as our Savior, we bow to the One, True King and acknowledge His position on the Throne.   It is we who benefit from His reign in our lives because it is we who are changed when we live knowing that He is enthroned.  When the King reigns — we change.

Oh Girlfriend, your destiny is not to blend in!  Don’t settle for the ordinary when the Extraordinary died to give you more.  You were meant to walk stronger, serve harder, and love deeper.  Your King has given you life to the full.  Keep Him on the Throne and live it well Sister!  Live it well!

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The Resolve to ROAR!

13 Feb

I had two sad coffee dates this weekend.  One was with Samuel in chapters 7 and 8 of the first book bearing his name and the other was with some gal who had written an article on the power of positive thinking.  Funny thing is that the same story was being told by both people.  Both were recounting our desire to trade our limitless God for a weak replica we constrain by the limits of our finite minds.   The article on the power of positive thinking featured this quote from Unitarian, Beatrix Potter:

 “Believe in a great power silently working all things for good . . . and never mind the rest.”

Now in the most general terms, Unitarians do not believe in the Trinity nor do they accept Jesus as the Son of God.  They reject the inerrancy of the Bible as well as the doctrine of original sin.  Essentially, when you put Beatrix Potter’s words together with her beliefs, there isn’t one thing “positive” about it. To me, she’s saying you pick and choose who and what you want god to be and then place your faith in the willy nilly nature you have decided he should have.

I can’t speak for you but I know that the god I constructed prior to accepting Christ had no desire to hold me accountable for anything and always assured me that its benevolent nature would overlook any indiscretion on my part.  In fact, there could be no indiscretion because the standard for acceptable behavior was, to say the least, set up on a sliding scale.  Oh yes, I might like to have believed that the small “g” god I conjured up was silently working behind the scenes to make my life everything I wanted it to be but in all honesty, trusting something that was subject to my every whim was hard work.  I can say with certainty that any god who would be and do whoever and whatever I decided it would be and do, might be manageable but it definitely would not be trustworthy.  And while I might decide that the god of my imagination would work all things out for my good, you know me well enough by now to know that I would never have imagined it to be silent.

Now, if you were to consider the details of the gods Beatrix Potter and I had created, they might seem quite different.   She would’ve chosen what parts of the Biblical God she would contort to build her shadow ruler and I would have chosen mine.  But, it is the differences in our creations that reveal the identical nature of their cores.  Peel away the “my god would never this” and “my god is always that” and at the stripped down center you will find  . . . .SELF.  I want a god who behaves and fits into the box of the moment.  I want a god I am comfortable with and can control.    My god will serve the purposes I appoint when I appoint it to.  But most importantly, my god will serve me.  Perhaps I am wrong but I think that all of us have worshiped to some degree at that same self-constructed, self-centered altar.

I recently had a chance to chat on fb with a friend and we ended up messaging back and forth about this very thing.  It isn’t what we started out chatting about, but eventually the conversation turned in that direction and once it did, it didn’t seem as if I could leave it just hanging there.  I don’t usually talk about things that might be perceived as controversial through fb, texts, or even letters because you can’t hear the person’s tone of voice or see their body language so it’s too easy to misinterpret things.  But since a face-to-face or even phone-to-phone chat was not likely to take place in the near future, I plunged ahead, typed the question and clicked the send button.

  • “Do you believe Jesus when He says I am THE way, THE truth, and THE life or have you begun embracing the idea that there are many ways to God?”
  • Message Seen 11:48 a.m.  The answer:
    • “I do believe in God (their use of a capital “g” not mine) but I do not believe in religion or Christianity.  So to be honest I don’t really know how to answer your question.”

My heart was beating hard at this point.  I love my friend.  So I rephrased the question hoping that the response I received would assure me that they simply hadn’t understood and, beyond that, they would clearly tell me that of course they believed in Jesus.  I tentatively typed and pressed send again.

  • “Maybe you have answered my question in saying that you do not believe in Christianity—which means follower of Christ.  Have you decided that you no longer believe that Jesus is the Son of God, willingly died for your sins on the cross, and was raised to life so that you could be reconciled to and live in the Presence of God the Father?”

I sat holding my breath and staring at the computer.

  • Message Seen 11:57 a.m.  And the response hit the screen like a hard right cross to the chin.
    • “Correct. I do not believe that.”

I’m not sure how you indicate long, heart sinking, wish it hadn’t happened silence in this genre.  I’m new at the whole blogging thing.  But after a very definite pause I  finally found my fingers, typed the question and hit the send button again.

  • “Who is the god you believe in?”

The reply that came:

  • “Idk.  I just know that there is someone greater than me that created me.  I believe God accepts everyone for who they are.  And I believe if you are a good person you will be rewarded.  The Christian God will let a rapist or a pedophile into heaven as long as they repent and believe in Jesus.  That is not right in my eyes.”

That response makes my heart ache and my eyes sting with tears.  And yet, the general description sounds all too familiar.  If you think back to your bC (before Christ) days, wouldn’t you agree that we have all worshiped the “idk” god?  The one we made up.   That we were comfortable with.  Perhaps we said, like my friend, that “my god” is accepting of everyone—implying that the One, True, Living God is not.  And then, in our next breath, we accuse the same God we just implied was too judgmental, of being too soft on those we have decided do not deserve forgiveness.    We say that “our god” will reward good people but we have reserved the right to define who is or who is not good.  And if we’re honest, our definition of good used ourselves as the gold standard.   We created a god who would not challenge us to be anything more than our sin nature desired to be.  The god we constructed in our minds behaved himself.  He loved who we wanted him to love, forgave who we wanted him to forgive, and threw lightning bolts at those we decided deserved them.  The god we were serving was small.  It fit inside our finite notions of who and what God should be.  If we want a god that manageable, that limited, that controllable, we will never be able to accept the truth of the God who gave His One and Only Son to save us.  Because He is none of those things.  He is God, there is no other.

I am the Lord, and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,
  so that from the rising of the sun
to the place of its setting
men may know there is none besides me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other.

Isaiah 45:5-6

GOD is enormous.  He is limitless.  He is LOVE and He knows no bounds.  His beauty, His majesty, and His splendor are so fierce that they cannot be contained.  His majesty erupts and the heavens spring into existence.  His beauty explodes and the stars find their places.  His splendor bursts forth and the seas are hemmed in.   He is unending love and fearsome holiness. He is beyond what we can conceive or imagine and He has chosen to summon us by name and claim us as His own.  In the words C.S. Lewis used in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to describe Aslan,  “He’s good, but He’s not tame.”  Sister, your God is anything but tame.  From my perspective, He who called forth the Lion of Judah is absolutely WILD!  We simply do not have the capacity to comprehend His limitless love, perfect passion, or uncompromising holiness.  And still . . . and still . . .  He says to you, “You are the apple of my eye!”  Beloved,  . . . you’re His favorite!  The Wild One is wild about you!

And unlike Beatrix Potter’s god, He is not quiet about it.  Her silent god who works behind the scenes disintegrates in the presence of the Holy One who announces for all to hear that He works for the good of all those who love Him.  No, God is not silent concerning His love for you.  He confirmed it from the manger and shouted it from the Cross.   Girlfriend, do NOT limit God to what you can imagine.  Give Him permission to show you more, to push you to be more, to call you nearer.  Beloved, the Wild One is calling you to raise your eyes, open your heart and hear the roar!

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The Resolve to Go Beyond

7 Feb

One thing I know to be true about myself is that I rarely tell a short story.  Especially when it comes to sharing about whatever thing God is doing around me at the moment.  I try to keep things brief but the details are significant and, to my way of thinking, you don’t really get the full impact if I don’t share each and every one. Hence, Side Note #2 to be read in a whisper on the last post.

Everything God does and shows us is so worth talking about to me.  I’m up front about my verbosity.  I always tell (or warn – you pick the verb) the sweet Sisters who attend my Bible studies that “I am a woman who loves to do two things:  study the Word and talk.”  And by the end of our weeks together, if they have learned nothing else, they have learned that the second part of that statement is true.  In fact, I was blessed to have my niece in attendance the very first time I introduced and expounded on material I had written myself.  When we left study, I said to her, “Sis, can you believe I talked for almost an hour?”  She didn’t skip a beat as she very matter-of-factly replied, “Oh yeah Aunt Bunny.  I wasn’t surprised.”

And, as you’ve probably noted by now, this blog does not deviate from my pattern.  For those of you who have been following since the first post, have you noticed that the number of comments that can be seen down the side has grown?  It isn’t just that there are more comments to show.  Nope.  There’s this widget in the blog set up that I can use to select how many comments are visible at a time.  It ranges from 5 to 15.  The first post I set the widget to display 5 comments.  But then on the second post I noticed that the text went past the comments and made the post look a little wordy.  Did I shorten the post?  No!  I moved the number of comments displayed to 10.  On the third post, I talked long enough that 10 didn’t do it anymore, and I had to change the widget to display 15 comments.  But 15 is the maximum that can be displayed so now I can’t even create the illusion that I can be succinct.  I think that’s why Twitter doesn’t hold any appeal for me.  Who can say anything in 140 characters or less?

While I’m not certain that wordiness is a spiritual gift, I am definitely thankful that God has blessed me with an enthusiasm for the things He has to say and an eye that often sees His intimate involvement in the everyday.    It might be that I appreciate those things so much because it’s so far from where this rebellious heart began.  I totally identify with the words God spoke through the pen of the Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy.

The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.  Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. 1 Timothy 1:14-16

I often tell friends who are praying for someone close to them to surrender to Christ, “Look at me and have hope.  I’m tangible proof that God never gives up and no one is beyond His reach.” See, my life confirms that God reaches out and changes hearts regardless of our sin history. And I know, that as blessed as I am to be called by Him in the here and now, God has an inheritance kept in heaven for me beyond what I can conceive or imagine.  How can I be so confident of this?  How do I absolutely know it to be true?  Because it is who my God has always been and what my God has always done.

When I was little I used to love to read those big, hard covered Bible story books.  I think there were 12 of them.  The collection included the accounts of Noah, Moses, Joseph, David, Samuel.  All the Old Testament heroes of faith were there. But I cannot recall ever seeing a book on the woman who has become my favorite Old Testament giant of faith:  Rahab the harlot. The NIV offers the possibility that Rahab may have been an innkeeper rather than a prostitute in the footnotes, but the King James Version is blunt, to the point, and offers no alternative.  Regardless of the descriptor, God did not allow Rahab’s sin history to keep her from a redeemed future.

  • God knew exactly the kind of “innkeeper” Rahab was and He chose to offer her love.
  • Rahab knew exactly who she was and she chose to believe He loved her enough to save her.

Her choice to trust God protected her family, altered the face of the Israelite Nation, and directly touches your life today.  Still, though her influence is far reaching, after Joshua 6, we don’t find the name Rahab in the Old Testament again.  But Girlfriend,  don’t think for a moment that Rahab doesn’t cross the Covenant line.  She not only crosses it, she comes over with a roar!

Even though the author of my beloved children’s books might not have been able to find an appropriate way to celebrate her among the heroes of faith, the Author of our faith did.  He made certain that the Apostle Paul listed her right after Moses and before Gideon, Samuel, and David in the “Hall of Faith,” Hebrews 11.  She’s not only commended as one who believed and was saved, she is also included in the Book of James as one who was counted righteous because she acted on her faith. So Rahab stretches from the Old to the New Testament as an example of God’s saving grace and a life of faith throughout the generations.  Now what of the inheritance kept in heaven for us that will never spoil, perish or fade that I mentioned earlier?  What proof do we have of that?  Well, I believe that the answer to that is found in the very first chapter of the New Testament.  Matthew begins his account with the genealogy of Jesus Christ the Messiah and  tucked quietly in at verse 1:5 we find Rahab.  Rahab, fully redeemed, fully grafted into the vine of the chosen of God, completed the family tree that bore the Messiah.  Rahab  was the great-great- . . . . .grandmother of Jesus Christ.

Now that might be something you have considered, but have you ever let your mind go to the next step, to the beyond what we can conceive or imagine?  Think about this.  Rahab would have departed this planet long before the Messiah was born.  She would’ve learned who The Branch in her family tree was straight from the mouth of God.  What would she have done as she heard the Father say, “Rahab, I am sending the Messiah.  He will be the Light of the world.  He will redeem the generations and bring my children home.  And Rahab . . the One who is Redemption will be your great-great…grandson.”  Beloved, try to stand in Rahab’s shoes as the words washed over her heart.  Do you think her eyes drew open wide as her mind tried to comprehend it?  Did her hand cover her mouth as it fell open and the truth of it settled on her soul?  Did she begin to weep as understanding dawned in her heart? I don’t know how or if she remained upright, but I hope I get the chance to ask her someday.  And I hope I get the chance to thank her and let her know how much it has meant to me to have someone “like her” walk before someone “like me.”

Rahab the harlot, who lived long before me, is how I know that God loves me regardless of my sin history.  Rahab the called, who chose to trust God to preserve her life, is how I know He works for the good of those who love Him.  Rahab, the redeemed, who had no idea what awaited her in Glory is how I know that my mind cannot conceive the goodness.

So, there it is.  God being God.  He who was, He who is, and He who is to come.  He is faithful to Himself.  All of those words, all of that verbosity,–more than a paragraph past the end of the comment column– just to come full circle and find that our God does not change.

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God is Resolved to Speak My Language . . .and Yours

4 Feb

I have made much of God’s faithfulness to Himself in these first few posts because God has made much of His faithfulness to Himself to me over the last year and a half.  Really, God has been preparing my heart to begin grabbing hold of that foundational truth forever.  That’s one of the wonderful things about Him.  He doesn’t care how thick-headed or dull you are, He’ll just keep repeating Himself until He sees the flame of comprehension begin to flicker.

I have to tell you that as I wrote that last sentence I felt a smile spread across my face because I had never realized before that “thick-headed” is my love language.  Let me explain.  The thing that God uses, more than anything else, to romance my soul and woo my heart is the revelation of the connections that flow between the Old and the New Testament.  I love it when He says the same thing on both sides of the Covenant line — when He repeats Himself.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, thrills my heart more than having His Word come to life that way. Nothing makes my heart, my mind, and my soul stand up and praise in such complete adoration. In that moment, my spirit knows what God meant when He told us that His words are life.

Since “thick-headed” might not be your love language, let me give you an example of what I mean. I won’t be able to describe the whole process to you or explain exactly the way God leads me from thing to thing, but I think I can give you enough so you understand just how sweet He is when He peels back the temporal and gives me these small glimpses—which are enormous for this everyday woman– of His glory.

So this is how it often unfolds for me, just change the place in the Bible I am reading and the thing that catches my eye.  I open my Bible and read Genesis 3.  My eye catches on the fact that part of the curse/consequence of sin is the land producing thorns.  The Holy Spirit nudges me to wonder, “Do you think it’s possible thorns are linked to or symbolic of sin throughout the Scripture?”  I haul out my Strong’s concordance or go to Biblegateway and search for the different Scriptures that have the word “thorn” in them. God has used that process to start my train of thought chugging down tracks, with the destination unknown, time and time again.  That particular time, it played out like this:

 Genesis 3:18

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.  It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.

The Problem: Thorns symbolize the curse

    • Thorns were birthed by sin.
    • They are the consequence/by product of sin and man will toil to be free of them
    • The land has no choice but to produce them.

Isaiah 10:17

The Light of Israel will become a fire, their Holy One a flame; in a single day it will burn and consume his thorns and his briers.

The Promise:  The curse will be consumed.

    • A Savior — the Light of Israel — will come
    • Sin will be consumed by the Savior 

Matthew 27:27-31 (Mark 15:16-20; John 19:2-5)

Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

The Person:  Christ wore the thorns/curse.

Choo!  Choo!  We have arrived and the view is beautiful.   The thorns birthed by the curse in the opening chapters of Genesis have been overcome by the birth of redemption when our Jesus became the curse for us.  He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness and by his wounds we have been set free.  No longer are we held captive and forced to produce “thorns and thistles” we may now produce a crop that is fruitful and receive the blessing of God.   See the wonder of it.  Feel the overwhelming sense of Him.  God, who does not change (Malachi 3:6), leaves nothing unfinished.  Everything comes to fruition in the Son, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).  Choo!  Choo!

Now, you might be sitting there beside the tracks thinking, Bunny that does not trip my trigger at all.  I heard the whistle sound in the distance and it isn’t that I don’t find it nice, but to say it thrills me might be a little strong.  Well, take heart Sister, because while I might be dumbfounded that it doesn’t take you straight to the Holy of Holies, the One who matters is not!  He knows what you need to hear and He planned before time began to speak straight to your heart.  Do you really think He wouldn’t shout the “All Aboard” in your direction?

I have a beautiful Sister in Christ who indulges me all the time as I ramble on about the things God is showing me.  And she is sooo thrilled . . . for me.   Because at the end of the day, God says it, she reads it, it’s true.  End of story.  She doesn’t have the compulsion to know every detail.  That is not the language of her soul.  She loves to hear me talk about it.  She loves His truth.  But what stirs her heart is when you put that truth to music.  Music is the thing that leads her to that place of complete immersion and adoration.  And isn’t it just like God that He gifted her with song so they speak the same language fluently.

Not so long ago this sweet friend was struggling with some serious health issues.  The symptoms she had been experiencing could’ve pointed toward some very dire neurological diagnosis. A series of tests were ordered and as the day for their completion drew near we earnestly prayed that God would bless her with peace and a calm heart.  She arrived for her tests and entered the unfamiliar building with a heart full of confidence that God would be with her every step of the way.  And that same heart thought of her two kids and her husband and what God might call them all to walk through.  But true to His Word, her God did not leave her for a moment.  No, her God was right there preparing to sing a love song just for her.  After signing in, an older gentleman approached her in his volunteer vest and explained that he would be escorting her to the testing location.  She gathered her things and began to walk at his side.  As they journeyed down that corridor, with her heart full of her family, the old gentleman began to sing, “I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got peace like a river in my soul . . . “  And she did.  Because the God of the Universe, the Lover of her soul, bent down low and whispered in her ear.  She had heard, in the voice of that old gentleman, the truth of God.

“The Lord your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.”

Zephaniah 3:17

Dear One, never doubt for a moment that the Creator of communication is fluent in the language of your unique soul.  To her who has an ear, let her hear.

thSide Note 1: My sweet Sister has recovered in full and continues to sing in worship and praise to the One who has saved her.

Side Note 2:  (Read this part in a whisper so no one knows that I couldn’t end without telling you just a thing or two more) –I have the paper in front of me that has all the verses I looked up that particular day and it’s long.  It wasn’t what we needed for this example but I have to tell you I am totally agonizing about not painting the whole picture so please, when you have the time go to Numbers 33:55 because you’ll find out there that sin hurts if you hang out with it.  If you go to Judges 9 you’ll see what you give up if you not only allow it but actually ask it to rule over you.  And Ezekiel 2:6  is where we discover that even though sin and rebellion surround us we need not fear. And then in the New Testament read the Parable of the Sower in  Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8 because we need to know that sin can choke us to death.  All aboard!!

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The Resolve To Love – – Without an Asterisk

31 Jan

I felt a little sheepish when I read back over the last post in preparation for this one and realized I hadn’t clearly stated that marrying Brett and the privilege of being Miss Britt’s Momma were definitely my biggest blessings.  I’m hoping that the sentiment was a given and needed no explanation, but just in case — Biddinger Duo, I love you so and I give thanks for the very good gifts you are each day.

Even though I love the Dynamic Duo with all my heart, and from the seat I now occupy in time can honestly say “I wouldn’t change a thing,” I would be less than honest if I didn’t confess that my life has taken some turns that I did not expect when I said “I do.” If you’re married, I bet the same is true for you.  If you’re single, honey, it will be.  Not many of us, when we get married and say “for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse,” have any clue what we’re saying.

Just imagine if we actually comprehended the commitment we were making as we exchanged vows.  And do you Marilyn, promise to love and cherish Brett even when you are celebrating your 5th anniversary and realize he still hasn’t learned to read your mind?  Do you promise to honor and partner with him in the pursuit of your dreams when after having been married 10 years he still drives too fast and rides the cars in front of him?  And will you love him above all others when he insists you buy a dryer without seeing it in person and it melts all your favorite socks?

Lest we think all the future revelations are for the bride, I’m certain most grooms have no idea what is in store for them when romance meets reality.  Poor Brett.  I’m so certain he did not sign up for toothbrushes slathered with dripping white goo, eyebrow hair sculptures in the sink, or “winter legs.”  And Girlfriend, if you’re from Michigan or any place cold weather sets in, you know what I am talking about there.

I think it’s probably best that we don’t stare straight into the face of real life and see our spouses-to-be without at least a hint of rose colored glasses prior to our marriage. Imagine if Brett had looked at the ankle bones above my lace covered wedding shoes and seen the shadow of the coming winter.  We did get married in September so if it hadn’t been a special occasion . . . . . I’m just sayin.

Picture what might happen if we knew the unsanded, ungroomed truth looming just the other side of the honeymoon?  How many of us would stand firm in our desire to be together until “death do us part” if we knew in advance about the hair sculptures in the not-so-distant future or the melted socks on the horizon?  Might we decide that dealing with the imperfections and unmet expectations just wasn’t worth it?  Unfortunately, because I know the fickleness of my own heart, I can state with certainty that apart from Christ, my love is conditional at best and self-centered at worst.

Unlike the unfailing love that I have received from my faithful God and Savior, my love comes with an asterisk –*until my expectations aren’t met.  And my asterisk love is not limited to my husband; it extends to my Divine Bridegroom as well.  Can you imagine the God who is jealous for me (Exodus 34:14) offering all that He is to keep my heart safe, secure, and wanting me to be devoted solely unto Him being met with:  “I will love only you if ___________.”?  Your fill-in-the-blank might be different than mine but we can easily come up with some general answers to paint a pretty good picture of the things that steal our attention and our affection.  Might the “I LOVE YOU” we profess be more accurate this way:     I love you.*

* if my children are happy and content.

* if I am successful and happy in my job.

* if I have a nice home and money in the bank.

* if I do not experience pain—physical or emotional.

I might not have hit on yours, but I bet you know without a lot of thought what comes after your asterisk.

Here’s the thing.  God doesn’t tell us to love only Him because it does a thing for Him. Remember, regardless of who or how I am God has always been, is today, and will continue to be perfect (Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8).  He needs nothing from me (Acts 17:25).  He has no unmet inner need.  It really took me a long time to get over the notion (I pray you aren’t offended by this and ask you to stick with me on it) that God was a “glory hound.”  I had this warped picture of a red-eyed God with a lightning bolt in the sky demanding that all eyes and all hearts be focused on Him.  I had no idea that an undivided heart served me – not Him.

That’s right. His desire for my heart to be undivided, to love Him with no asterisks, serves only me.  Because only when my eyes and my heart are fully pursuing the God who is Unfailing Love can I hope to  begin to love others.  It is His love living in me that reaches beyond my human limitations and loves my husband, my child, my friends, and my enemies.  When I am firmly determined to love Him with everything I am, when I am resolved to be filled with His Spirit –no asterisks involved—I will live life to the full.  I will possess life beyond my wildest imagination when I live, move and have my being in Him (Acts 17:28).  This is not only the future inheritance He has set aside for me (1 Peter 1:3-6).  It’s the asterisk free living He calls me to now.

Sisters, the Beautiful One has declared that He is enthralled with your beauty (Psalm 45:11).  He promises that His great love toward you will stand firm forever and that His faithfulness was established in Heaven Itself (Psalm 89:2).  He takes great delight in you and rejoices over you with singing (Zephaniah 3:17)–and doesn’t your heart just know that it’s a love song.   Yes, the One who is Love has chosen you to be His beloved and based on the authority of His Word, I guarantee that you can search the pages of your Bible from now until the end of our age and  . . . . . you will never find an asterisk.

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God has Resolved to be God–Malachi 3:6

28 Jan

2013 is somewhat of a milestone year for the Biddinger crew.

Brett and I will be married 25 years this September.

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 Britt will turn 20 in April

brittsr3

and

we will celebrate the 20 year anniversary of the accident that rendered Brett a quadriplegic in June.

2013-01-27_19-16-44_891

Yep, you read that right.  I chose the word celebrate when referring to what we believed, at the time, to be the worst thing that could possibly happen.    Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t start out with a spirit of celebration about the accident.  We have had and occasionally still have days of great sadness.  To be honest, we sometimes just get tired of doing the thing.  But those moments, praise God, are few and far between.

We most often embrace our lifestyle with joy and, without a doubt, the wheelchair has been the catalyst for faith lesson after faith lesson.  I’ve often heard Brett tell people that if he were offered the choice between a restored spinal cord and the faith heritage we are leaving Brittany that there simply would be no choice.   So my man and I walk through each day . . .well, I walk and he rolls (c’mon you have to have a sense of humor) . . .knowing that our God has gone to great lengths to redeem our inheritance and confident that He always does the good thing.

He always does the good thing because as we read in James, He is the Giver of all good gifts (James 1:17).  It is who He introduced Himself as in the opening Book of Genesis when He gave His good creation to Adam and Eve to steward.  It is who He was when He gifted us with Jesus and it is who He will be when He presents the beauty of the New Heaven and the New Earth to His children. And yes, personal experience confirms for me, it is who He is today.  You see ladies, your God does not change.

I believe that all of Scripture hangs on this one immutable fact:  God does not change.  He is and will remain the God who He announces and shows Himself to be:  always holy, always love, always compassionate, always trustworthy, always just, and always faithful.  If we could but wrap our minds around the unchanging nature of God, taking it from head knowledge to heart assurance, we would not worry or be anxious about . . . well, about anything.  We would have certainty that His intentions for us are good and we would have no doubt that what God sets about to do, He accomplishes.  Who knows, if we were to grab hold of that simple truth, we might even stop trying to be the god of our own lives. Believe me, as one who has tried to fill the position time and time again; we don’t have what it takes to do the job.

Yes , my God is faithful.  He is faithful to Himself.  What He has declared Himself to be is what He always has been and what He is today.  The same God that breathed life into Adam is at work breathing His Spirit into those who believe in His Son today (Genesis 2:7, Romans 5:5) .  The Almighty One who claimed the Israelites as His own and announced He would form them into a holy nation and kingdom of priests has claimed the same for His children in the present age.(Exodus 19:6; 1 Peter 2:9).   And the same God who dressed Adam in sacrifice has clothed those who believe from head-to-toe in Jesus Christ (Genesis 3:21, Galatians 3:27) .  Beloved, be secure.  Know to the marrow of your bones.  Trust beyond what your eyes see.  Your God will not change.

I wonder if we might have difficulty fully rejoicing in that statement or comprehending the gravity of it because it is simply beyond our human experience.  Unfortunately, we live in a world scattered with broken promises and filled with less than perfect character. Might it be that our experiences with those on planet earth have left us with preconceived notions of undependability and distrust that we hang around God’s neck?

Scripture seems to bear out that our penchant to compare what we know and have experienced to that which we do not fully understand does not surprise God.  In fact, He drew the comparison Himself and flat out says that He is not a man that He should lie nor a son of man that He should change His mind (Numbers 23:19).  The same verse tells us that God does not say He is going to do something and fail to follow through or make promises that He doesn’t keep.  It simply is not His supernatural style.  He has resolved to be faithful.  Faithful to Himself.  He has been God, He is God, and He will continue to be God.

I, the LORD, do not change.         Malachi 3:6

Try and set your preconceived notions and very human experiences aside for a moment and drink in exactly what that verse is saying.  The prophet Malachi was inspired to use the proper name of God (YHWH), which encompasses His wholeness and perfection, to highlight the absolutely complete and unchanging nature of God.  Barnes’ Notes on the Bible makes the following observation on this passage:

The proper name of God, “He who is” involves His unchangeableness.  For change implies imperfection; it changes to that which is either more perfect or less perfect:  to somewhat which that being, who changes, is not or has not.  But God has everything in Himself perfectly. (Emphasis added)

God cannot be dissuaded from being God.  His perfect character and nature require no alteration.  His perfection guarantees that who He is, is who He will remain.  He is perfect love and He is perfectly holy. And Beloved, He has chosen to love the very unholy and very imperfect — you and me.

It is warm and fuzzy to think that God’s faithfulness is simply to us, but the truth is, He is faithful to us because He is first faithful to Himself.   Read over that again and try to wrap your mind around the fact that God’s faithfulness has nothing to do with you.  One of the reasons that’s so hard is because, if we’re honest, we want everything to have something to do with us.

So why does God love you?  Because of your righteous and outstanding nature?  No, God loves you because He said He would (Romans 5:8).  Why did He send His Son to take your punishment and offer you a redeemed life?  Because you deserved it?  Again no.  He did it because He said He would (Genesis 15:17). And why has God blessed you with the indwelling Holy Spirit so that you might desire Him?  Again, God, in His full perfection and unchanging nature, said He would and so He does (John 14:26). And these things will not change because He will not change.

Praise His Name, He is immovably, unshakably, faithful to Himself which means that neither our lack of faith nor our imperfect acts have the power to change the Almighty.  That’s not my opinion, that’s His declaration:

if we are faithless, he will remain faithful,

for he cannot disown himself.

2 Timothy 2:13

Girlfriend, do you see the heart of your perfect God in all this?  None of your shortcomings, none of your “less than moments”, and not even your faithlessness can change the heart of God.  Author Jen Smidt takes all my ramblings and ties them together with a giant, red, succinct bow:

“Embracing God’s faithfulness to himself frees us from the devastating effects of thinking we have anything to do with the way he sees us.  God sees his children through the atoning blood of his Son, covering us for every act of treason and rebellion we have committed.  He isn’t faithful to us because of anything we have done well or poorly. . . .”

Sister, your God loves you so and He will not change His mind concerning you.  Your imperfections do not scare Him.  In fact, He longs to lavish you with His love (1 John 3:1).  He has promised to work all things out for your good and as we read in Numbers, and I have testified, He is always true to His Word.  I have no doubt, regardless of my circumstance or of what my limited vision perceives, that He is the Giver of all good gifts and, may I be so bold as to say, He’s wild about me.  And you know what?  He’s wild about you too.  He has summoned you by name and you are His (Isaiah 43:1).  Resolve to fix your eyes on the One who has His heart firmly fixed on you and you can be certain that He will show you His Glory.

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Resolve: a firm determination

23 Jan

It is January 23, 2013.  For many people it is the time the rubber meets the road for those New Year’s resolutions.  Will they become life-changing habits or will we gently say to ourselves, “good try”? I honestly didn’t make any resolutions this year because I am praying that the resolution I made in 2012 will be at the forefront of my mind until I no longer glimpse Glory but live in His presence.  At the end of 2011, I sat with a group of the most beautiful Bible study partners a woman could be blessed with and listened as one after the other chatted about what they resolved to do differently in the upcoming year.  Now from the outside, you would think that every one of these ladies had it so together that they would simply need to keep doing whatever it is that they were doing to be satisfied in life. And yet, every single one ached to change.  To improve.  To be different.

Some described the changes they were after with embarrassed giggles and others with firm statements.  “I’m going to take all that laundry off my treadmill and really use it this year!”  “I’m pulling all those sticky notes out of my datebook and getting my schedule under control.”  “This will be the year I actually read through the Bible without skipping Leviticus!”  And the list of do’s and don’ts flowed through the room.  But no matter how it was stated or what area was being scrutinized, it was clear that the resolve to pursuit change was in the air.  Believe me, I had my own list as long as my arm, but as I sat there listening and in the days that followed I began to ponder the concept of resolve.

If you look up resolve in the dictionary, one of the definitions offered is: a firm determination.  And if you will let your mind wander to the last time you resolved to do something, you’ll see that the definition is accurately descriptive.  Let your mind’s eye glance at your determined posture as you contemplate the change. Your eyes are focused. Your jaw is set and your head is slightly tipped forward to take the brunt of any obstacle that might be encountered.  You Sister, are firmly determined to do the thing!

The truth is, rather we give voice to it or not, everyone on the planet is living a life of resolve. We are each engaged in the pursuit of something.  It looks different on different people, but it’s there.  Not only is it there, but it drives every decision and every investment of our time, energy, and resources.   So the challenge God put out to me, and the one I would like to share with you is:  What if, rather than pursuit the what of life, we resolve to pursuit the Who and allow Him to determine the what?

What might we experience if we resolve to know God better and ask for His blessing of wisdom and revelation to do just that (Ephesians 1:17)?  Where might we go if we resolve to submit to His authority and trust Him for all the outcomes in our lives (Proverbs 3:5-7)?  Will we do it perfectly never removing our gaze from Him?  No, but we can depend on God to bring beautiful things from our firm determination to seek His face (Psalm 37:23-24).  Our shortcomings do not take our God by surprise.   In fact, He was well aware of them when He “determined the time and exact place” (Acts 17:26) our imperfect resolve would be displayed for His glory.  And with full knowledge of our less-than-moments, He planned to bless those with eyes to see (Matthew 13:16) with glimpses of His glory.

Why am I so confident of this?  Because God has been demonstrating His RESOLVE to reveal His glory to His children since He began time and He will close our chronos with a fresh revelation of Himself.  It is who He has been and who He will be.  The Great I AM does not change ( Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8).   Since we exist somewhere between Jude and the closing verse of Revelation, we can be certain that His resolve to be seen applies to us every bit as much as it did to the Israelites and the Apostles.  Beloved, God has chosen you as His child and has woven you into the world timeline.  He will not hide from you or change His mind concerning you.  And if we will lay all else aside and resolve to love Him and pursuit Him with all we are, I believe He will meet our very ordinary efforts with the very extraordinary–Himself.

This has been the desire of my heart for the last year and God has shown this ordinary woman more than someone like her ought to see.  His faithfulness to Himself and His promises have astounded me and He has amazed me for my sake over and over again.  And in my imperfect resolve to pursuit the Who, I have seen His Glory unfold in the Most Holy Place and I have been assured that I am welcome to dwell there.  Yes, the boundary lines have fallen for us in pleasant places (Psalm 16:6) and if we will resolve to live there with our eyes wide open, we will, without a doubt, glimpse Glory.  For the Glorious One has guaranteed that we, even in our imperfection, who seek hard after Him will not be disappointed.

I know what I’m doing.  I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you,

not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.

When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I’ll listen.

When you come looking for me, you’ll find me.

Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else,

I’ll make sure you won’t be disappointed.

Jeremiah 29:11-14 (The Message)

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